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This was at the top of Ritu Narayan’s mind when she left India. As a girl, Narayan dreamed of becoming an astronaut. In school, she was one of 6 girls out of 300 students in her engineering class. By the time she immigrated to the U.S., she had become the first engineer in her family.

After starting a family of her own, Narayan realized that her ability to make choices, especially as a working mother, was becoming increasingly constrained. “I was working at eBay when my daughter started school, and it was very hard to find someone reliable who I could trust to pick her up,” she explained. “It was a crazy hassle trying to juggle work and childcare. I kept feeling like I should be working.”

From the beginning, the demand for Zūm was clear. Her turning point came she met Miriam Rivera of Ulu Ventures, who wrote their largest seed check, giving Zūm the ability to quickly launch and scale. “There was an instant connection with [Rivera],” Narayan says of her early investor. “Having faced this problem for years, she knew the scale of what we could become and even compared us to Google early on.”

“We are always looking for founders with an authentic personal story,” said Bryan Schreier, partner of Sequoia Capital, who led Zūm's $5.5 million Series A in 2017. “Ritu built a company based on her own experience as a working parent and created an elegant solution that tackles a key problem facing modern families.”

Today, Zūm announces their $19 million Series B, led by Spark Capital. The raise makes Narayan one of the few female founders to close a significant late-stage funding round. In 2017, female founders captured just 8% of late-stage venture rounds. Looking forward, Zūm plans to expand its school offering to select major cities in California, and grow its footprint to 20 additional locations in U.S. cities in 2019.

Nabeel Hyatt, general partner of Spark Capital, originally learned about the service through an organic referral. Originally skeptical, he started using Zūm to pick up his kids from two different schools. Within a month he was “completely converted.” Soon thereafter, he reached out to Narayan and came on as lead investor. “It’s important to think about how all these new startups are benefiting the world,” Hyatt said. “Zūm is one of those startups that benefits all parties involved - parents, kids, schools, drivers - this is one of the main reasons why they’ve been able to grow so quickly.”

90% of Zūm's drivers are women with childcare experience like nannies, stay-at-home mothers, nurses, and teachers who would otherwise have a hard time finding flexible jobs with predictable incomes.

Asked about how she views her success to date, Narayan shares that she is excited about her role in empowering more female entrepreneurs. “The biggest challenge for a lot of girls when we discuss the pipeline problem is that you can’t become what you can’t see.”

Even when Narayan was raising she refers to the inspiration she gained from Adi Tatarko, Cofounder of Houzz. “When I saw her successfully raise from Sequoia, it suddenly seemed doable. As more women raise, it will get easier for others. ”

Freedom of choice drove Narayan to found Zūm, and now she is expanding the ability for other female entrepreneurs to dream big. “My true desire is for more women to raise big rounds from investors so they can build highly scaleable companies and become role models.”

Lisa Wang is the Founder and CEO of SheWorx, the leading global platform empowering 20K female entrepreneurs to build and scale successful companies.

I am the Founder and CEO of SheWorx, the leading global platform empowering 20,000-plus women to build and scale successful companies through actionable business strategies and access to top investors. I am driving the movement for gender parity in funding and championing a ...